What's the appropriate Microsoft Office 2007 version for charities? [closed]

Question

I work for a small charity in the UK. Like many charities we rely completely on donations and so have to make our money go as far as possible.

We've had a copy of Office 2007 Home and Student Edition donated to us. Are we allowed to use it? On the Microsoft website it specifies that it's intended for households, which would exclude us, but in the programs themselves it says "non-commercial use", which does include us.

Is there anything in the license terms that would stop us as a charity using Home and Student Edition?

Answer 1

The simplest approach would be to contact Microsoft in the UK and explain the situation & they'll give you the correct information.

The only thing to consider is that if it has been previously installed you might have a problem activating the software. In that case contacting Microsoft is the best advice I can give here.

Answer 2

As you guys advised I fired off an email to the help address for Microsoft's online store. I got the following response:

Dear Mr North,

Thank you for your e-mail.

It is no problem at all for you to use an Office Home and Student edition in the context described by you. For further inquiries about Office products please click on this link:

http://emea.microsoftstore.com/UK/

Please feel free to contact us if you should have any further questions. We are happy to help.

Kind Regards

Manfred Löchtermann

So it looks like it's fine after all.

Thanks for your help.

Answer 3

I know in Canada that would be a license violation. Not sure if the UK is the same as in Canada but MS has a very attractive Charity and Not for Profit license program. Just looked and Office Standard Charity is CAN$83.00 Worth chatting with a friendly reseller. In a past position, I saved my charity/not-for-profit clinets thousands of dollars on this program.

Answer 4

What you possibly need is the Microsoft Open License for Charities, but trying to find UK specific information without going via a Microsoft Partner is a challenge in itself. Start with

https://partner.microsoft.com/UK/licensing/licensingprograms/ltvolumelicensing/vlopenlicense

and see how you get on from there

Answer 5

To answer your question: probably not. You'd need to ask a lawyer or a Microsoft licensing rep. I can't understand their T&C's anymore.

I'll probably lose karma for this as it doesn't answer your question--but why wouldn't your charity at least investigate the use a competing office suite that doesn't classify users, or discriminate against terms of endeavor?

The most popular office suite that doesn't have any sort of use conditions would be OpenOffice.org.

If your money is that tight but you have some time, evaluate it. There is no per-seat licensing (the license gives you additional rights, and it's zero-cost) and it's incredibly compatible with Microsoft Office, although it is not perfect.